Umm, Williams only had 9 points tonight, he sucks to. Try trade Roy for someone good like LeBron. Although, now that his value has dropped dramatically we will be lucky to get just a second round draft pick.
KG even said "Brandon Roy looks hurt." Playing him is such a bad idea right now. It's not going to get better by playing on it.
This game against the Celtics was woeful. Nate McMillan must get the chop for this team to even begin resembling a pro team once again. I've seen college programs run better offense than McMillan. The Blazers defense, spacing, boxing out, shooting all look suspect and mistrained. But the most alarming thing to see is the lack of hustle and desire. (Bayless, Camby & Pendergraph excluded) I think this comes down to a leadership issue. One, that McMillan has lost his team and, two, that Roy is not going to lead us to the promised land. I'm suspicious of Roy becoming one of the 'comfort players' that rotate through the NBA, wasting their super talents in a comfortable lifestyle fueled by the mega-million dollar salaries. Some players have all the talent in the world, but become lax after earning a big paycheck. Their heads, and especially their hearts, are just not in it. Roy taking the summer off was dissapointing (something I don't think you'd get away with if your not Brandon Roy), and he really seems to want as much time off as he can get. That's not a good example to set as the leader of the team. NBA life is demanding time wise, but that's why they're paid millions. (great that he's a family man, but he's our captain, sets the example, and, oh yeah, he's getting paid 80 million dollars!) LMA is an example of a guy who's head isn't in the game. He has great talent but fails to utilise it properly. LMA always seems to be thinking of something else other than the game at hand. No concentreation, no hustle, no spirit. (He's prob thinking: how am I going to woo that young lady with my millions after the game?) Some players live and breath basketball, others are naturally talented enough at it to cruise through their career earning ridiculous amounts of money. It's the players that live, breath basketball who combine that work ethic with their talent and the killer instinct that rise to the pinnacle in their sport. (Kevin Durant/Jordan/Kobe types) I just don't see that desire from Brandon and I whilst i think he'll have a good career, I don't think he is a superstar level player. Personally I'd trade him for someone who's not quite as talented but would run & play Defense (effort), someone who just leaves it all on the court. (And someone who doesn't negatively impact the flow of the offense simply by refusing to run) That's the type of leader this team needs, not someone developing a team of sooky wusses. Sorry for the rant but I'm tired of seeing no hustle or effort from these millionaires.
A lot of people think its rust. To me, it looked like he was trying too hard to fit in. Which shouldn't be the case. We have invested too much into him for him to play off his teammates. His teammates need to learn to play off of him.
Let's look at it from two different perspectives. First, let's say Roy's hamstring is really messed up. In that case, he shouldn't be playing. Second, let's say it's all in Roy's head. If he's going to be thinking about his hamstring, he's not thinking about basketball. I understand the argument that by playing enough, he'll eventually forget about it, but I haven't seen it. If you can't fix Roy's head on the court, in my opinion he's holding the team back by playing. I also think there's this natural tendency by the other players to defer to Roy on offense. If the other four are standing around watching him, then it makes the entire team less effective on offense. And having to cover Roy's guy on defense because he can now be taken off the dribble by any move that requires him to make a quick change of direction puts too much pressure on the other four players. In short, I think it's time from Brandon to wear a suit until he decides he is capable or willing to give 100%. This year is lost anyway. There's no need to see what we did last night for the next 26 games. He either needs to get his hamstring right or his head right.
The medical team has cleared Roy to play. This is our star player we are talking about, if he wasn't healthy enough the medical team and McMillan wouldn't let him play. This is all in Roy's head, maybe he is sad his BFF(Best Friend Forever) has left the team?
And we lost 21 points on a net basis with him in the game. We fed him for most of the 4th quarter. That wasn't a great quarter for us.
Play Roy. Play him alot. Play him until he stops thinking about his hammy and starts just playing. At least this is what I think without having any actual knowledge of the condition of his leg. Kind of like the rest of the opinions I'm reading here.
And my guess is that's what Nate is trying to do with him. Roy did seem to relax a bit with his increased minutes. My issue is that it would have better delayed until our road trip. Let him play 40 minutes against the Nyets. We have a larger margin for error against them than we did against the Celtics and the Jazz.
Well, yeah. Why do you think that was? We were playing one way when Miller and LMA were tearing it up. Roy was on the bench and we were running. We let UTA set up, went iso, and things fell apart. Sometimes, one player can gum everything up, even if he's your best player.
Miller could have done a better job of distributing the ball (5 assists/18 shots), and LaMarcus could have tried defending Boozer. It was a team failure. Why is there always a need for a single scapegoat on this board?
